Has anyone had clown eggs hatch in their main tank?

[Damsel13]

If all filters are turned off after the lights are out on the 7th night and the area where the eggs are is fed directly from the live rotifers in the bottle is there a chance of any surviving or do the babies and rotifers just disperse never to be seen again?

Debbie

[Fishamatank]

They will get eaten by tank mates most likely.

[eric@tampa]

Yeah,night 7 is the start of the midnight buffet for all critters in your tank.

[Damsel13]

What do the fry look like right after hatching? Can they be seen by the naked eye with a flashlight? Do they hatch a certain amount of time after lights out?

[yeloowtang]

they have no chance at all !!!! in one book i have i think i read somewhere that in nature only 1 out of 1 million actualy makes it to maturity !!

my self in the past i have raised the baby clown fish (tomato clowns)
i could wright 3 pages of info but a quick explanation..

first you need to have green water to feed the rotifers to keep the cultures going.
next stage feeding is baby brime then other foods as they get bigger.

as for the eggs when they hatch,all pumps need to be off and as soon as the lights go off you wait with a flash light aimed at the top corner,as soon as they hatch they will all head for the light (moon) for them in nature.

you ctach them carefully and transfer them in a small tank with all the wall covered with black papper to prevent light from the sides.

the first they they are ok then the fun starts as you feed them the rotifers.
as they grow you add baby brime and i then transfered them to an other small tank before the final bigger tanks for grow out.
by that time more eggs will have hatched and keep doing so for a while.

this is verry short explanation.
the green water and rotifers are one step
catching them is another or some will remove the eggs from the parents to have a better success rate.
feeding them is work.
growing them is work.
watching them grow is priceless
watching every steps as they transform into fish from the first signs of color to when they first start to swim like fish is amazing..

all this is extremely time consuming and i enjoyed every step of it but i won't be doing it again !!!!! they will become food for the tank mates

the lfs realy enjoyed me selling the the localy raised clows they gave me 10$ a fish and i managed to grow out a little over 150 ,wich is not bad but you do lose many specialy the first couple days...

good luck

steff

[yeloowtang]

Originally Posted by Damsel13

What do the fry look like right after hatching? Can they be seen by the naked eye with a flashlight? Do they hatch a certain amount of time after lights out?

they look like silver !! the only thing that comes to mind is baby frogs ,just a head with a tail and big eyes maybe 3 to 4 mm in lenght if i remember corectly

mine came out 20 minutes after lights out.
you just sit there and wait for the first sign of something fast darting in the tank !! then spot you flash light to the top with a small glass or pot and you can catch them..they will all go up but they get tired from the efforth and will go to the bottom after a not so long period..

steff

[Damsel13]

great description Steff. Thank you. I think I can do this if they lay right away after tonight I may be able to set it up. It's a long shot though...

[MYDRAAL]

Thats the biggest pita way of catching them. If you ever decide to raise them, try getting the parents to lay the eggs on something removable.

[shifty51008]

I suggest picking up the book clownfishes by joyce wilkerson, great book on breeding clowns. I doubt you will have any survive tring to raise them in the main tank but good luck.

[yeloowtang]

setting up the tank for them is easy,all you need is a small 2.5 gal with an air stone with not to much flow nor water,make sure you cover floor and sides with black construction paper !! from the outside hehe

i'm in canada so thing are complicated but you can get live rotifer easy from florida aqua farms.

it's the green water that is more complicated as it normaly takes 7 days to get ripe.you basicaly have 7 bottles ,one for each day.
what i did
line them up on a table with a light behind them,each with an air stone.
put the petri dish of algea in the firstbottle with salt water, next they part of bottle one 1n 2 and so on..
by day 7 the first bottle is ready so you feed the rots 3/4 of the bottle and refill the fresh salt water and the cycle begins

again very short on details but this is the big of it.

make sure no rotifers (not even 1) finds his way into a green water bottle as it will become clear and full of the little guys they multiply fast
that and the green water can turn on you if it gets to old.

again in the states you can probably find some of that already riped !!!

you have nothing to lose trying it when they hatch the first time,chances are in about 11 days afetr the hatch they will spawn again (mine did) and you are now ready to give it a shot !!!

talking about this is giving the urge to do it again hehe

best of luck

oh and it's not always on day 7 for me it was day 9 so if after sitting there for 2h and you see nothing chances are it's the next day,usualy when they are realy silver that's the sign they are ready

steff

[iap]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1874909

this guy has had them hatch in his display tank

[yeloowtang]

having them hatch in the DT is easy but to have them grow up like he claims !!!
i would love to see pictures of the babies,unless he's mistaking them for something else !!! that would be amazing if they realy are baby clowns making it in the DT hope he will come back to his post with pictures..and updates..

ohh and damsel13 i left this info out but it's important if your going to try it.
you will need a heater in the small tank and need to hide the red light with electrical tape and also aim the air bubbles under the heater.
otherwise the fry will head for the light and suffocate with the heat produced by the heater,just a little more info

and like shifty said that's the book i have and it's great with all the info you will ever need

steff

[iap]

yea id like him to update the thread as well. i have a pair that lay eggs seems like every dang week and just like clockwork the eggs are there for a few days then they are eaten and they lay again. oh well

[Luckylouse]

I've been lucky enough to have clown hatch eggs and the fry survive.

Mine have been alive for 2 weeks now. The mortality rate is high but I still have about 15 or so that live under a huge Anemone in a low flow area of my DT. i feed them twice a day ( live Roties) from a turkey baster. I'm not truly confident that I'll be successful but I'll continue on my journey and see what happens.

I also have these little clowns avery where in my sump. i'm nor feeding them because I can't pollute my tank with Rotifer water as I have a dominant SPS tank and it's extremely low Nutrient system.

I'll keep you posted.

I think it is possible but you need to have the Stars line-up and it's a ton of work. Live Rotifers is a must.

[Damsel13]

I put some live rotifers in a small glass with tank water and siphoned a few silver eggs off the side of the tank and put them in with the rotifers. I don't see any movement. It is only the 7th night. Maybe they are not ready.

What exactly is 'green' water? I have very very light green water in my bak pak skimmer. Would the rotifers eat this?

[shifty51008]

green water = phytoplankton it is the base of the food chain in the ocean and no the skimmer water is way diff.

sucking up the eggs before they hatched prob killed them, i would just wait till they hatch and then try to catch them.

[luisgo]

For those that want to see how they look close to the 7th day here is a photo of the eggs in my 125 gallon reef tank. They spawned several times and they were always eaten by the other fish in the tank.

[shifty51008]

that is such a great pic.

[Damsel13]

fantastic pictures!!

[Damsel13]

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[Damsel13]

This is a bit better. Thanks for all your feedback. Thank you for your patience in advance moderators!

[Damsel13]

Update
The eggs hatched 7/25 I had the treat for the first time of seeing exactly two! swimming free. In the morning all were gone. Hope the other critters had a healthy feast

[Allmost]

luisgo, AMAZING picture !!!

my peppermint shrimps, bangaii cardinals, and clowns have babies every once in a while and they become food for the other fish, or corals.

I save the seahorse fry, in hope of being able to raise them one day.

[Damsel13]

This is not allowed here~dc

[jprince]

Great pics!! My clowns have been spawning for years and it is a feast for sure. Maybe someday I will try to raise them just to say I did it.